Is it possible.. or has spring sprung?

Seriously two full days in a row of beautiful glorious, gorgeous sunshine.. it was just a great way to spend the weekend.. as as you can see from these photos spring is definitely in the air up hear in Portland... you can tell from my blog that I love this weather and can say without a doubt in my mind that Portland is a great place as long as the sun is shining, the sky is blue and there is no RAIN.  So we took advantage of the grand days and took the kids on a bike ride down by the river along the spring water corridor.  It was really invigorating getting on our bikes and taking a ride and I had forgotten how much fun it was to get out.  It was a little on the chilly side despite the sunshine,and not being familiar with the this part of town, we were a little stuck on finding somewhere to stop for lunch, especially as the kids didn't feel comfortable crossing the bridges to go to downtown Portland on their bikes... which considering they would be sharing the road with cars, I can't say I could blame them...  

Finally 

we managed to find our way to Burger King for a well deserved hamburger (of course all the good we did biking we immediately undid by eating this delicious (she says sarcastically) gourmet meal!  Still beggars can't be choosers and eat we did before getting back on our bikes and biking back to our original starting point a good 3-4 miles non-stop to our car. 

 

It was a really pleasant way to spend the day. 

 

That was yesterday, today we took a second trip to Berkeley Park where I let Morgan loose with my camera and you may have noticed she now has a blog of her own, so you can check out her photos there.  Also Owen & Darren practiced baseball as he has tryouts this Friday for his team.  Anyway I'll leave you all with an image of Morgan & I hanging out together while the boys practiced.

And now time for a quick game of touch football.... but first -

Check out this sunset.. seriously.. I had to snap this shot out from our back deck because it was just spectacular.. I was sitting (as I do a lot - much to the chargin of my kids) at my computer the other day and I happened to look up and out the window and this is what I saw... 

Isn't it just beautiful!

On a whole other note; on one of the 

few non raining days (I hesitate to say sunny as even though it

 was glorious this 

morning - the clouds have come in to gloom up the day), the kids and Darren decided to have an impromptu game of touch football out in the 

front.  Thought instead of writing loads I'd just show you the photos instead.

Can you believe these kids!!!

Well today we had a field trip to the Oregon Humane Society as a treat for Valentine's Day!  As Owen's teacher said, what better way to celebrate a day of love then by raising donations and funds for those who tend to be forgotten, so at the beginning of the new year, the kids of Owen's 3rd Grade class and those of one of the 4th Grade classes was given an assignment to raise donations for the Humane Society, and just check out what these kids achieved.  The Humane Society informed us that this was the largest donation they had ever received in one day!  Owen alone, raised upwards of $500 + in money and donations, so for all of you who donated a very big thank you from all involved.... The picture you see was just a fraction of the amount of food and donations that were raised... can you believe these kids? .... There were a lot of animals in need, and as you can see Shasta, was very happy to see us. And I'm glad to report, we found out someone had adopted her while we were visiting.  Not so sure about these others who we got to meet.. oh well perhaps they will go to good homes soon.  The people at the Humane Society did tell me that they have a very high adoption rate at the center so that is definitely good news for all the animals there.And as tempting as it all was to adopt, I told Owen and Darren, that there was no way we were adopting any animals... just as well Darren was there because there was this one dog Billy, who was very cute but I guess he'll be picked soon.....  Happy Valentine's Day everyone... 

Valentine's Day tomorrow...

You know I was checking some past blogs and I realised it is a little over a year since I started this journey of posting the comings and goings of my life... A whole year!  Wow!  It doesn't seem at all possible that I've been at this for this length of time.. 

Well instead of waxing prophetic about this past year, I'll just let you in on some of our happenings in the past week... actually today is the first day that I don't ache from the delicious pain for excersion (Sp?) and it was worth the pain to feel the sun on my face, the icy cold whip through my hair, and to watch the kids excel effortlessly down a mountain.. oh and did I mention there was snow - lots of it!  In case you hadn't guessed this already, for those a little behind on the uptake, we went for the first time to Mount Hood to ski- Timberline to be exact.  And it was just beautiful.. and  clear! 

And really not that cold considering!  We so totally lucked out with the weather too as from what I heard on the news tonight, we have had only one clear day the entire month of

 February and that was last Saturday! It was an amazing day

of skiing, and the kids did incredibly well considering we skied for almost 5 hours (not straight I'll grant you).  They were so pooped at the end of the day, that even the promised specialty hot chocolate up at the Lodge seemed to be too much effort for them to actually partake in.  Still the sore muscles have healed and we are all raring to go again... 

From Sledding to Basketball - what a great way to spend a day!

I'd say.. and a great way to get away from the dreary wet rainy weather in Portland; so having made arrangements with some of Darren's co-workers we decided to spend the kids' day off from school at the snow; and we were not disappointed.. of course it took  a little time to get there but once there the snow did not stop falling but that didn't stop us from getting into some inner tubes and racing down the hill; of course there were some very funny instances like when our friend Wilson decided to take a running leap onto his inner tube, only to bounce right off it again into the snow while his tube flew off down the hill.. or when Owen was most definitely having trouble with his tube and getting stuck every few feet and coming down the hill only to finally bounce off and roll down the hill... it was incredibly funny, however, Owen didn't find it any where near as funny as we did and got quite upset with us for laughing, but that of course only lead to a snowball fight and more craziness in the snow.  Check out the pictures!And then on the other end of the day we headed to a Blazer's Game at the Rose Garden.  They were playing the New York Knicks.  We met up with some of Owen's friends (whose family we had invited - and who had never experienced a sporting event before) after a horrendous search for parking.. unfortunately both Owen & Morgan were quite tired from the day of sledding.. but it was an awesome game.. Throughout the game the Blazer's were trailing the Knicks which was incredibly disappointing as shot after shot they missed the basket, and for sure we thought they were going to lose.  But that didn't negate the amazing atmosphere of the stadium, and of course the excitement increased every time the Blazer's caught up to the the Knicks and even though both kids were both starting to fade, when we got down to the last 50 secs (yes I did say 50's seconds) the Blazer's managed to bring the score up to 79 to 81, and literally in the last 20 seconds of the game the Blazer's equalized the score... the crowd went nuts and the game went into to overtime... To make things even more interesting the Blazers went on to win the game 94 to 85.. unfortunately, we didn't get to witness it as both Owen & Morgan at this point were toast and it was already 1038pm.. I knew they wouldn't last the extra 1/2 hour the game would take to finish... but it was still a blast.   Perhaps next time we'll get to stay till the end!